They are here, they’re beautiful and they are more colourful than ever – Festivals From India with a purpose to make you groove, circulate your frame, open your mind and create memories to last an entire life. Get your tour boots on and go to these 10 destinations for many of the excellent galas throughout tune, literature, multi-arts and people arts steeped in the magic of India.
Ziro Festival of Music
Held amidst the outstanding Ziro Valley in September, this 4-day annual pageant is hosted with the aid of the local Apatani tribe, known for its closeness to nature. With an infrastructure constructed almost absolutely of domestically sourced bamboo and a strong emphasis on green practices, the Ziro Festival of Music is a one-of-its-kind event. The cautiously curated line-up brings together over 40 excellent independent music acts from across the place. And international. Past variants of the festival have blanketed performances with the aid of rock acts Lee Ranaldo and the Dust, Lou Majaw, menopause and MONO, blues institution Soulmate, jazz artist Nubya Garcia, Indian classical musician Jyoti Hegde, qawwali musician Shye Ben-Tzur and singer-songwriters Lucky Ali and Prateek Kuhad. Since its release in 2012, the pageant has grown exponentially to draw a faithful and globe-trotting crowd. It has also been a key player in driving tourism to Arunachal Pradesh and is presently the biggest non-pilgrimage, tourist-drawing occasion inside the country.
Where: Ziro Valley, Arunachal Pradesh
When: September 2024
Hornbill Festival
The 10-day Hornbill Festival celebrates Nagaland’s rich cultural history and traditions in all their glory. This “festival of gala’s” gives a peek into the cultural range of not handiest the Naga human beings, but all of the northeastern states of India. Experience cultural performances by way of Naga tribes, journey sports activities like mountain biking, day-hikes through the Dzukou Valley, meal stalls that showcase neighbourhood cuisine and include aggressive ingesting occasions which include the “Naga King Chilly & Pineapple Eating Competition”, art and craft exhibitions. Indigenous handicrafts, video games and sports activities also are featured in the ten-day cultural birthday celebration. Other activities that have been featured in the competition encompass World War II rallies, rock concert events, and a “Bamboo Carnival”. Some of the musical acts that have been accomplished at previous editions of the competition encompass Temsu Clover and Band, Nagaland Collective, Run Monday Run, Cotton Country and Fifth Note.
Where: Kohima, Nagaland
When: Early December 2024
Jodhpur RIFF
The Jodhpur RIFF (Rajasthan International Folk Festival) is “India’s ultimate global roots music competition of folks, indigenous, jazz, reggae, classical and international music”. It takes area every October around Sharad Poornima, the nighttime of the brightest full moon in north India, in the intimate placing of the stunning 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort. Annually proposing more than 350 young and legendary musicians from Rajasthan, India and the sector, the competition is a combination of loose and ticketed daylight hours concert events and membership nights, held from dawn to sunrise. Among the numerous stalwarts to have played at the pageant include Lakha Khan, Vikku Vinayakram, Shubha Mudgal, Manu Chao, Wouter Kellerman and Jeff Lang. Maharaja Gaj Singh II of Marwar-Jodhpur is the Chief Patron and rock royalty Mick Jagger is the International Patron of the Jodhpur Rajasthan International Folk Festival, which takes region under the aegis of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust.
Where: Jodhpur, Rajasthan
When: October 2024
Serendipity Arts Festival
Since its release in 2016, the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa has developed into one of the biggest annual interdisciplinary cultural extravaganzas in South Asia. A panel of 14 curators selects the occasions and experiences, which might be presented over 8 days in December. Covering the fields of culinary, performing and visual arts, they’re hosted at venues across the metropolis of Panjim. The sites range from heritage homes and public parks to museums and riverboats. Over the years, the curators have blanketed ceramic artist Kristine Michael for craft; chef Rahul Akerkar for culinary arts; Bharatanatyam exponent Leela Samson for dance; Hindustani classical composers and performers Aneesh Pradhan and Shubha Mudgal for tune; lensman Ravi Agarwal for pictures; actress Arundhati Nag for theatre; and cultural historian Jyotindra Jain for visual arts. Spread over several venues across Goa, the Serendipity Arts Festival is an instance of a way to create a high-quality, free, reachable competition for all people from a toddler to an aesthete, with mixed-used spaces, adapting heritage venues, providing fantastic curation throughout genres and at a scale that takes massive vision to create and convey.
Where: Goa
When: Mid-December 2024
Visual Arts Festivals From India
This changed into an elaborate one. Normally we’d advise the general public biennale Kochi Muziris Biennale (KMB) in a heartbeat, but for the negative pageant control practices (“constantly scrambling to get matters up in time” as Girish Shahne wrote in Scroll. In) that brought about final-minute delays and shortage of conversation in the 2022 version of the Biennale we’re hesitant to suggest the KMB 2024. The different huge occasions are the artwork festivals – India Art Fair, Delhi Art Week, Mumbai Gallery Weekend, and these days concluded Art Mumbai – that have fantastic art but are in large part marketplaces in Delhi and Mumbai. So we’ll exit on a limb here and ask you to examine the various exceptional city-led art festivals starting from Bihar Museum Biennale in Bihar, India to Art is Life in Bengaluru to Behala Art Fest and AF Weekender in Kolkata. Check out our Visual Arts web page for the latest in visible arts.